Probabilistic approach-based PMU placement for real-time power system vulnerability assessment

Recently, several smart grid applications have been designed to improve monitoring, protection and control of power systems in real time. Most of these emerging approaches exploit the capabilities of wide-area technologies (wide area monitoring, protection and control - WAMPAC). Since WAMPAC implementation requires distributed phasor measurements throughout the system, phasor measurement units (PMUs) have to be adequately located depending on the real-time application. This paper addresses the problem of PMU placement with the aim of achieving high observability of system dynamics that are associated to transient and other short-term phenomena, in order to perform reliable real-time dynamic vulnerability assessment. Thus, a hybrid approach to determine suitable PMU locations that allows ensuring observability of slow and fast dynamic phenomena is proposed. The proposal uses Monte Carlo-based simulations to iteratively evaluate the system fast dynamic coherency, as well as the bus oscillatory modal observability. The methodology is tested on the IEEE New England 39-bus test system. Results show the feasibility of the methodology for orienting the selection of buses that offer the best PMU location in terms of dynamic observability.